Regional Director Candidates

Note: This week’s open phone line with O&E Executive Team (Jan. 11, 2 p.m.) is cancelled due to West Central Regional Director candidate interviews.

Please join the OSU Extension Service as we welcome candidates for the West Central Regional Director position. As your schedule allows, please engage in the presentations and meet & greets, listed below, and provide your feedback. Note the various locations. Presentation recordings will be provided for those who can’t watch live or attend in-person.

Web Upgrade Project Update

The recording of the Jan. 3, 2018 content planning kickoff webinar for Ag & Natural Resources Extension work groups is now available. A second webinar opportunity (same information) is available on Jan. 11, 9 a.m (WebEx link). This information is also posted on the content teams page for reference.

Impact Reporting: How is it Used?

The EESC team uses Digital Measures as a source (though not the sole source) of raw material for impact statements posted on our Bridges to Prosperity website. When appropriate, these impact statements are also pitched to national partners – USDA-NIFA, Ag is America, Land-Grant Impacts, and others – for inclusion in their databases, communications and social media.

Designathon One Registration Open

Eight $250 registration scholarships are available. Apply by February 2. Scholarships will be reimbursed to an OSU account.

What happens at Designathon One?

Trained facilitators will use custom tools (like the Adobe Kickbox Innovation Kit which has gained attention from Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and more) to guide a process for ideation and lean experimentation.

This process encourages testing ideas and iteration for rapid prototyping.

The result is Extension programs that are designed to make a difference.

Taking Food Safety Nationwide

Thanks to the creative minds of Jeanne Brandt and Glenda Hyde, OSU Extension’s food-safety efforts got national exposure with an infographic on safe giving of home-prepared foods. Here it is on Ag is America’s website. Ag is America (a national campaign that showcases land-grant universities’ research, news, and impact) also posted it to their Twitter and Facebook pages. Here it is on our own Twitter feed (Dec. 28th post).

How it happened: Ag is America got hold of EESC early in December and asked for some clever, informative content on a holiday theme. EESC recruited Jeanne and Glenda, who eagerly stepped forward. Kudos to them! We threw around some ideas, and Ag is America provided graphics.

Result: A catchy, effective message that helps get OSU Extension in front of a national audience.

We thought the story was worth sharing because it was an opportunity to work with a key national partner to spread our good information in a mostly visual way—something we’re trying to do more of.

We hope this example will help you “think visual” about your own programs and activities. If you have ideas or questions about visual communication (or any kind of communication), please get in touch with us at EESC. We’re always up for a conversation.

Annual Conference Photos

Awards photos and portraits, taken at last month’s Annual Conference, are available for download.

These sites are temporary (in order to keep our Web server running fast) and will remain online through March.

The original photos will remain in the EESC database (digital asset management system) for at least 5 years. Feel free to contact us for your photo needs.

Brand-related Tips – Fonts

Brand font families are loaded on all Extension field faculty computers. Look for Stratum (for headlines and subheads), Rufina Stencil (for headlines and subheads) and Kievit Office (for all body text). On-campus faculty and staff need to request the licensed brand fonts from University Relations and Marketing.

Recommended fonts for general business correspondence are universally available systems fonts: Cambria or Georgia (serif fonts), or Verdana or Calibri (san serif fonts).

The numbers in the Rufina Stencil branded font family behave differently than numbers in the other recommended fonts: it defaults to using hanging numerals (some of the numbers appear to drop below the line). Our brand calls for using full-height numerals. Don’t worry. It’s easy to set a default for the numbers to appear correctly! Find the secret for Microsoft Word and InDesign here. Unfortunately, Microsoft PowerPoint doesn’t allow for changing numbers to full height. If numbers are used prominently in your presentation or design, use Stratum or Kievit Office branded font families instead.

Dreams of Cuba: The Little Gallery presents “Dreams of Cuba,” an exhibition of photography by Greg Bal. On view Jan. 8-Feb. 28, with an opening reception Jan. 18, 3:30 p.m. The artist is displaying photos captured in Cuba in 2013 during a study abroad class led by OSU professor Nana Osei-Kofi.

NAACP writing festival: The Corvallis/Albany chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will be hosting a writing festival and scholarship competition entitled “Youth Voices of Diversity,” to be held from 11 a.m. to 5:20 p.m., Jan. 15, in the Horizons Room of the Memorial Union. For more information contact Nicole Hams at hamsn@oregonstate.edu